Of Magic Mirrors, Mary-Sues, and Madness
by StormwalkerofLorien
Summary: This is somewhat of the classic 'Mary-Sues invade Middle Earth' story, but with a slight twist that has probably been done before. We now have a slightly insane, sarcastic, and very blunt author from the real world and her trusty laptop to fix things. Humor? Yes. Arguments? Yes. A little bit of character bashing? Of course. Romance? You'll just have to wait and see.
1. The Questionable Sanity of Galadriel

**This is my very first upload, so sorry if the format is weird... thanks for reading everyone!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Lord of the Rings. And I also don't have enough cash to buy the rights. Which sucks.**

The flawless, mostly Elven, faces that swirled around in the crystal water of Galadriel's mirror seemed to smirk at her through their full, red lips, mocking the power she had to watch their every move. Their faces were softly curved, framed by either pale Elven hair or raven black, as if they were doing their best to look like a Nazgul's bride. However, the fact that their soft black curls sweeping around pale faces did not look anything like how the Lady Galadriel envisioned a Nazgul's bride was the most annoying thing about them.

She didn't seem to notice that her teeth were clenched and grinding against each other as her graceful fingers wrapped around the mirror's rim, clutching it until her knuckles turned purple. "Why are they here?" she asked the elderly man beside her in a tone that sounded like a Morgul blade scraping bare rock. He reflected that the Lady of Lorien could be quite frightening when she showed her temper, even if it was not unleashed upon him.

"I do not know, Milady," he replied, his voice heavy and tired upon his weathered face. "Their presence is maddening to us all, but you must keep your head." _Please. So that you do not drive us into our graves._

Galadriel had been going on for days about the sudden invasion of Elves, Humans, and even Hobbits, all with the same tasteless character, that had plagued Middle Earth. Thranduil and Lord Elrond themselves had arrived in Lothlorien to discuss the outrageous number of useless Elves that had appeared in their realms a fortnight before, and it became clear that not only Lothlorien was suffering from this strange invasion of even stranger peoples.

"My apologies, Galdalf Greyhame." Galadriel looked up from her mirror, the maniacal glint fading from her eyes. "But my sanity is lessening, and it we do not clear up this situation with haste, I fear it will desert me completely."

The old wizard chuckled softly to himself. "Considering the amount of sanity you possessed from the start, I would hate to see you lose your mind."

Her head snapped around, and for a moment, Gandalf could see the flames of rage lapping hungrily at her already stretched mind. But it passed quickly, and her fury became mock-anger as she replied haughtily, "Pray say that again, Mithrandir."

Gandalf only held his hands up in mock surrender.

"I would rather not." A kindly smile spread across his face as he spoke, and the bond of their ancient friendship glittered in his weary gray eyes. He seemed to many an old owl, too ruffled to see properly, sleeping soundly on the branch of a dead tree, waiting for lazy prey to approach him, but all who knew him well understood the strength behind his wrinkled hands when their gripped their staff and the ancient power that resided in his voice when he chose to unveil words of wisdom to a companion.

Galadriel's smile faded back into gravity. "Very well," and she stooped once more over the mirror, her white cloak ruffling in the wind. She was careful to avoid getting her hair caught in her looking glass, for the last time that happened, she saw an image of herself going bald, and though it would not come to pass, she could not bear the thought of seeing that image again. It was disturbing even to the eyes of an Elf who had live for millenia and seen more fights and deaths than the woods themselves. At least that was what legends told, and her flair for the dramatic was not about to disagree with them.

"Milady," Gandalf broke in, dust-laden fingers rubbing at his temples, "Are you sure these foul creatures are here of their own accord?"

The Lady's jaw locked stubbornly in protest. "Of course I'm sure! Do you know how many of them have attempted to court Legolas and King Elessar, and even the Lord Faramir in the past moon? Next thing we know they will be chasing after Frodo Baggins down in the Shire, and we both know he takes after his uncle in at least one trait."

"Yes," said Gandalf, "He does not much like visitors."

Galadriel nodded. "Especially those that stalk him like fair-featured orcs."

"Fair-featured, Milady?"

"Well how else do you expect me to put it?" she snapped. "Much as I hate to admit it, these invaders do not look like orcs! In fact I cannot find a flaw amongst them! And the sheer purity of their character is driving me into madness!"

Gandalf sighed to himself. "Yes, you have told me that already. What I wish to hear from your lips is an idea regarding how to be rid of them. There is something strange about these seemingly faultless beasts."

A strained smile stretched like pine sap over Galadriel's face as he called them 'beasts.' She was, indeed, mused Gandalf, losing whatever wisps and cobwebs were left of her sanity.

"Milady," broke in a new voice, thick and touched with reverence as he gazed upon the old friends in a moment of deep council. In both of their minds it was not council so much as squabbling like children, but they were not about to explain that to Haldir.

"Yes, Haldir?"

His lips twitched uncomfortably. Something out of the ordinary had taken place in Lothlorien, Galadriel realized, for that could be the only reason for such discomfort. Outwardly, her face was a mask of singular concern that displayed little to no true emotion; inwardly she grinned. None but the Lord Celeborn believed her when she said she was good at reading her fellow Elves. They all believed it was either her mirror or her invasion of their thoughts, but she really preferred not to invade the thoughts of others unless absolutely necessary. She had found that the minds of her soldiers were more soiled than she had ever imagined, nor had she ever wanted to imagine, and that their twisted thoughts were best left unmeddled with.

"We have a woman wandering through the forest."

Galadriel, to everyone's surprise, simply face-palmed. "Not another one. Can you just capture her, bring her to me, and let me dump her in the Mirror like we've done with the others?"

"Well, not really, because-"

"Is it because of the bow she claims she's remakable at shooting? Believe me, they always say that in character descriptions, but then they never actually shoot a bow. To be honest, they're skills with a bow and arrow are poor."

Haldir cocked his head. "Like yours, Milady?"

"Out." Galadriel pointed to the door. "Bring back this woman and we will be rid of her easily."

Only the Queen of Lothlorien, suspected that somehow, the woman they encountered in the Golden Wood would not be bound and dragged in as efficiently as the others. After all, she was quite good at reading emotions, was she not?

"Let me go, you fools!" screeched a woman's furious voice. "You think I _want _to be stuck here? You think this is some practical joke? You and your rubber ears and contacts! I'll show you to mess with my head!"

Galadriel's pointed ears perked slightly at the sound of a slightly rough, not musical, and very consciously angry woman. It was a sound she thought she would never hear from one of the invaders, and put a smile to her face. A devious, almost wicked sort of grin, but a smile nonetheless.

"Milady," said Haldir, gripping the struggling woman by her arms. "We have caught our invader."

"Invader?" she spat. "I am no invader! I'm just an innocent human being who got lost in your endless wood!" The way she said it did not sound particularly innocent.

Haldir's eyebrows quirked in amusement as the Lady Galadriel held up her hand. "Somehow," she glanced down at the raging woman still tight within Haldir's strong, Elven grip, "I do not think you are one of those wretched perfections."

The woman looked up in surprise and confusion. This was someone she had not seen in her twenty years of life. In fact, this was someon who she should not be seeing unless she was walking into a dream or had been knocked unconscious. _Same thing, _she decided, at the same time deciding that this strange woman could not be who she so strongly resembled.

She looked down upon the Elf soldier and his captive with glittering blue eyes like crystal pools of water. Untouched, they reflected only beauty, but when disturbed, every life that swam or grew inside of them would shiver and become agitated. And many an orc in the older days had learned that when the Lady became agitated, no good came of it. But apparently this stranger did not know of the older days, for she simply gritted her slightly crooked teeth and hissed at them:

"Who the h*** are you?"


	2. Hallucinating Earendil

**My second upload. Once again, I'm still figuring things out, so sorry if the format is a little odd.**

**Disclaimer: Still don't own Lord of the Rings. If I did, there are characters who would and wouldn't have died. And I'd be really old. And my name would be Tolkien. Which would be AWESOME, but it isn't.**

Haldir thrust her onto the earth as Galadriel's eyes lit with a humorous sparkle. She clearly did not take the insult as seriously as her soldier.

"Calm yourself, Haldir." She turned to the woman, noting that this captive was not dressed as strangely as the others. "I am Galadriel, Lady of Lothlorien."

"Yeah, right," muttered the woman with a glare and a wrinkle of her crooked nose. "And I'm Harry Potter."

The statement was obviously meant sarcastically, but the Elves just shared confused looks with those same blank, emotionless expressions on their faces.

"I do not understand your jest, prisoner," Haldir broke in, crushing the awkward silence with the plainness of his words. The captive met his eyes challengingly.

"Considering you have just stated what was perfectly obvious on all of your faces, perhaps you are, indeed Elves."

"I assure, you, prisoner, that we are."

"I have a name you know," she growled under her breath.

"With all due respect," Galadriel could tell Haldir was attempting to control his temper as he spoke to their stubborn abductee,

"You have not bothered to give us your name."

"Somehow I doubt much respect is due a prisoner like me," she told him scathingly, scanning the room with deep gray eyes like a thunderstorm over a mountain horizon, daring every Elf present to interrupt her. "My name is Tenali Hyperion. I'm an unpublished author, a fanfiction writer, and a liscensed falconer. And I know both Tae-kwon-do and kung-fu."

"Blunt," said Haldir under his breath.

Galadriel cocked her head. "Well, Lady Hyperion, I suspect you are a princess of sorts?"

Tenali snorted. "Heck no. What makes you think that?"

"Well there have been quite a few mysterious dethroned princess with no lineage nor kingdom that we have heard of in the past fortnight, at least. Might you be a dethroned princess?"

"No."

"A mysterious figure in the woods who is a princess but will not let anyone know it?"

"Nope."

"A reluctant princess angry with her parents for whatever situation she's gotten herself into this time?"

"No."

"The princess of some sort of intangible concept?"

"No!"

"An amnesiac princess?"

"NO!" Tenali shouted. "No, no, no, no, and no! I am not a princess, all right? I'm an a failure author without any royal blood in my veins. Besides," her face broke into a bitter smile that seemed mostly for her own amusement rather than those around her. "If I were a princess I'd need a nose job, and that won't be happening anytime soon."

"Hmmm," pondered Haldir. "Maybe this one isn't a princess, Milady. You've gone through just about every cliche we know of. Most princesses around here seem to be amnesiacs. Perhaps their creators intend it as some sort of practical joke."

"Creators? What princesses? If you were wondering, I'm still half under the impressions that _you're_ playing a practical joke on me, so what in the world could these people, whoever they are, be doing to you?" Tenali was on her feet now, casting a suspicious gray eye upon Lady Galadriel. For the first time, still and standing straight, the Elves were able to get a good look at her.

Galadriel's first thought was, _well this proves that she is not one of _them. Her hair, which seemed jet black at first (one of the the defining features of a flawless creeper-Elf), was interlaced with streaks of brown, giving it the appearance of dull ebony, as if it couldn't decide which color it was. Her striking gray eyes were not like the pools of pure blue or some otherworldly color like red or purple, and she possessed no fangs beneath her thin, pale lips. Her nose was not softly curved like that of Arwen Evenstar stuck onto a different face. It was crooked to one side and rather hawk-like, and it made her seem sharper, more observant, as if a calculating mind lay beneath her pale face. And that was another thing. Her face was not evenly tanned nor deathly pale (those with deathly pale faces tended to have full scarlet lips and unnatural fangs, neither of which the people of Middle Earth understood), but somewhere in an Elf's range. But she was definitely not an Elf, for her ears did not point in the slightest.

Her figure was not tall or short, but somewhere in the middle, and she walked without the grace of an Elf. Her shoulders were broad, but she was completely flat-chested (unlike so many of the other frightening newcomers to Middle Earth), and strongly built, with a rucksack around her left shoulder. She lacked any sort of odd cosmetics around her stern, angular face, and there was not the usual gloss to her lips. She had no delicate beauty; in fact if Galadriel were to use one word to describe her it would be 'dangerous.'

"We've been dealing with an... invasion, of sorts, here in Middle Earth."

Tenali rolled her eyes, holding up a hand to pause the Lady of Lorien. "First," she interjected, "prove to me that I am, indeed, in Middle Earth. If you can prove it, then I'll hear you out and help you if I may, even if this is some crazy sick dream that's going to kill my good night's sleep by morning."

More confusion echoed about the room between the assortment of Lothlorien Elves, considering that Elves had never before experienced these strange things called 'dreams,' but Galadriel ignored it. "Lady Hyperion-"

"Please call me Tenali." She sounded more exasperated than modest.

"Tenali," Galadriel corrected herself, "I will take you up on such an offer. What do you wish me to prove?"

Tenali lifted her chin. "Show me the existance of Elf-magic."

"Very well." Galadriel opened her palm, intense blue eyes focused on the light that now rested within it. "This is the light of Earendil, our most beloved star."

"Didn't you give that to Frodo?"

"What, you don't think I would save a little bit of starlight for myself? I lose hope from from time to time as well, believe it or not. Not to mention how difficult it is to retain any sort of grace when searching Lothlorien in the dark for something I dropped earlier."

Though her face betrayed the remainders of her skepticism, the 'author,' as she had called herself, dipped her head respectfully. She hesitated to say Earendil qualified as magic, but that little light had darned well looked like a star, and Galadriel had made it appear randomly in the palm of her hand with no notice ahead of time. And if she'd had notice ahead of time then she would have been psychic, which was just as convincing as the light of Earendil.

"So what darkness is ailing your wood?"

_Oh? _Thought Galadriel. It was quite remarkable how this strange woman could go from cursing and spitting to speaking as if she were a lady of the White City, but after fourty-thousand years, she knew better than to voice thoughts of that sort aloud. What she said to the other woman was:

"There have been these - I hesitate to refer to them as 'people,' because not only are the bulk of them Elves, but their desire for our soldiers and kings, is most uncharacteristic of Elf maidens. They are so voracious I could almost call them orcs, were they not so fair as to direct me otherwise. Some are human women or Hobbits, but most are Elves who pride themselves in their grace and their 'natural ability to shoot a bow,' that is really nothing more than empty boasts."

A spark seemed to fly from the embers of Tenali's hardened eyes as the Lady Galadriel described her new rivals. "You say they are flawless in appearance and character?"

"To the point that I could not say they have personalities at all."

"Mary-Sues," Tenali muttered, her voice like that of an angry cat waiting for one more provocation before it pounces.

"Mary-whats?" Haldir's face contorted in bewilderment.

"Mary-Sues," repeated Tenali grimly. "They're physical manifestations of how an author wishes they could be, with seemingly exemplary appearances and personalities. They are usually created when a fanfiction author wishes that they could marry a character from a novel, so they invent their own perfect character to court them instead. I've read quite a bit about them on fanfiction websites."

"Wait-" Haldir cut into the author's speech "-are you saying these things want to _marry _us?"

Tenali only nodded, relieved that the Elf's question was not about himself and his companions being part of a published novel. She was sure she'd have to explain that at one point or another, but she hoped desperately that it wouldn't be right then.

Galadriel eyed the young woman. "And you _understand _these creatures?"

"I do. I write fanfiction myself, though I certainly don't use such characters as those. They're ghastly sort of things, and despite all appearances, not friendly."

"Do you know how they got here?"

Tenali looked just a bit miffed at this question. "You think I know how they got here? Heck, I don't even know how _I_ got here! Besides, if I were some genius physicist or whatever, I wouldn't be living in a one-room apartment writing novels until 4 AM."

"So you _don't _know how they got here."

"No!" she insisted. "And I have no idea how to get rid of them! I just discovered magic exists, and now I'm living in a book! For all I know, Saruman could be controlling them with his creepy pointed staff from the top of Orthanc."

"Saruman the White is dead," spoke Galadriel. "Wormtongue killed him."

Tenali wrinkled her nose again. "Really? That's now how it happened in the movies."

"You haven't read the books, have you?"

"Course I have," said Tenali. "Seven times. But it's not like I've got a photographic memory. Wormtongue was never a particularly interesting or important character. He was just a creeper with greasy hair that followed Saruman around like a wrinkled old man's wrinkled old pet."

"Well in the extended edition of the movie, Saruman falls, or jumps, from his tower (I never can remember which) and dies upon landing. But that's not how it happened. Wormtongue jumped on his back and drove a knife into him."

Tenali's eyebrows scrunched together as a puzzled expression came over her face. "You're telling me you know there's a book? And a movie?"

Galadriel's mouth once again stretched into that maniacal grin. "I keep watch over your world as well, more than you think," she said evilly.

"So how come these Mary-Sues are such a bother? Can't you just wave your hand and make them disappear?"

The Elf queen's smile turned to a grimace. "Unfortuantely, no. I was hoping you might have provided me with an answer, but it seems that you do not know as much as I first believed."

"Nope," said Tenali. "Course not. But I promised to help you, and I think I have a way that we can find out." She reached into her black leather rucksack, her hands digging through i in a businesslike manner, and drew out a smooth, silver device with the simply drawn image of an apple glowing at its center. The Elves watched in amazement as she unfolded the device and typed a few things into it.

"What is that odd, gleaming contraption?" asked Haldir, his eyes wide, almost in a strange sort of reverence.

Tenali stroked its smooth gray spine. "This," she announced, her voice ringing fondly, "is my precious."


	3. Concerning the Inevitable Legomance

**This chapter basically goes through the motions as Tenali shows the Elves what happens when Legolas and fanfics collide. More sarcasm from Tenali, as always, and the background of her relationship with her "precious." Still weirded out by the whole format thing, so please tell me in the form of a review if I'm formatting it all wrong. Thanks, people!**

**Disclaimer: I just added disclaimers to the other chapters too, so... I don't own Tolkien. I can fantasize, right?**

Gandalf, Galadriel, and Haldir all gathered closely around the glowing device, as Tenali's fingers moved with a grace and swiftness not seen in the rest of her body over every key, pressing some of them down, swiping over others, and clicking a weird little button below them.

Lord Celeborn stood off to the side with a disapproving sniff of his perfect nose. Galadriel could already see that a rift was forming between her husband and the beautifully bright screen before her. Celeborn the Wise was called Wise for the reason, but there was also a reason he was not called Celeborn the Easily Convinced. _Plus_, thought Tenali as she clicked a link in her History bar, _Celeborn the Easily Convinced is a pretty dumb name._

"My Lady, are you sure we can trust this prisoner- excuse me, guest?" he asked her, casting a suspicious glance at Tenali, who was now typing something in a thin bar atop the 'webpage,' as she had taken to calling it.

Galadriel did not even look up. "No," she said in a monotone, staring at the screen in awe. Her eyes were dried out from staring and slightly glazed over, so that instead of crystal blue pools of water, they looked like crystal blue pools of smoke, or clouds. Or mud.

He chuckled slightly at the thought, turning his attention to Haldir, who looked far less enamored with this device and a bit more amused at the Lady's expression. Her lips were parted slightly, her ears perked forward. Celeborn suddenly began to wonder if he would be kicked out of the bed tonight and replaced with the strange, glowing, silver, box-like, thing that seemed to know the answer to every question it was asked, even if it only gave, simple, factual replies.

"Got something!" the words tumbled happily from Tenali's mouth as her fingers began to work faster over the keyboard. She turned to Celeborn with a knowing look and a smug grin plastered across her face. "Told you my computer had some answers."

His eyebrow jerked upwards. "I thought you said it was your precious."

"Same diff," she told him, turning back to the computer. The page before them was filled with words and little buttons just waiting to be clicked. "I've found a fanfiction in which a Mary-Sue falls in love with-" her eyes narrowed, and she pursed her lips.

"Who?" inquired Galadriel, more curiosity in her eyes than should have been.

"Legolas - again." Tenali rolled her eyes. "What a cliche. He's not actually that attractive."

"Yes, unfortunately, he is," chimed in Galadriel, and Lord Celeborn shot her a suspicious glance.

"What would you know about it?"

She glared at him. "I happen to be the person everyone complains to about the Mary-Sues, so I have to listen to him talk all day, mind you. And that isn't a simple task. Unless you specify, he really just states the obvious."

Tenali sniffed. "Well he's really only there for plot development, no matter how pretty you really think he is."

"He's dealing with quite a few of those horrendous beings, isn't he?" asked Celeborn, his arms still crossed stubbornly over his chest.

Tenali nodded, and he caught it only from the corner of his eye. "Quite a few." Those who stood in the room were surprised that she did not speak wistfully, for anyone who spoke of Legolas almost always spoke wistfully.

"You really don't care for him, do you?"

Tenali raised an eyebrow. "What makes you ask that?"

Celeborn shrugged. "Pretty much every single maiden in Middle Earth does."

"Well first of all I've never really considered myself to be a 'maiden,' and second of all, I'm not an Elf. Otherwise I wouldn't have all of these scars and bruises." She ran her fingers backwards through her hair, revealing a collection of scars and scabs running along her face, and for the first time the Elves noticed bruises on her forearms. "I'm a bit klutzy."

"If I didn't know better, I'd think you lost a scuffle with a barrow-wight," Haldir pointed out bluntly.

"And if I knew what a barrow-wight was I'd probably clop you over the head for that comment." Tenali turned back to her computer, scanning the fanfiction she had just discovered. Suddenly a chuckle escaped her lips, and all three Elves leaned in closer, Celeborn's curiosity overcoming his will to ignore them.

"Apparently Legolas just 'fell head-over-heels' for some Mary-Sue woman and gave up his immortality for her," muttered Galadriel, reading the tale that was written in Westron. Or English, as the author called it. "So these are the characters that invade our world. Suddenly I am more frightened than I should be."

"Oh," Tenali chuckled, "You should be very frightened. In my world, the most dangerous creatures are often the most beautiful."  
"Yeah, well, feel free to say the same about Middle Earth once you lay eyes on a Nazgul," Haldir shot back, offended that a mere visitor to Lothlorien would speak that way to its queen.

"Feel free to criticize my maxims after I've kicked you where it hurts." The mortal woman's eyes suddenly blazed with a fiery temper that Haldir did not know could be triggered so easily. "I do not intend ever to lay eyes on a Nazgul thank you very much." She fired one more dart of a glare into Haldir's irritated face, typing while she spoke. He shrank slightly at the sudden ire in her voice.

"Sorry Haldir," broke in Galadriel, still fixated with the computer screen. "But you just got burned."

Celeborn cocked his head. "I'm not sure that's appropriate language, Milady."

She only replied, "I know it wasn't," and Celeborn became sure that incidents within Lothlorien had just gone completely out of his hands.

Sitting with her laptop in the bed she had been given as a guest in the Golden Wood, Tenali Hyperion clicked through fanfictions. She knew she had gotten herself more wrapped up with the whole 'Mary-Sues in Middle Earth' problem than she should have been, but she never could resist a challenge. And be-ridding a fantasy universe of thousands of fair maidens that acted more like goblins at times was definitely a challenge.

"Now what's this?" she murmured to the laptop, stroking it affectionately. Her relationship with the computer she had just recently gotten as a birthday present from her ex-boyfriend (she couldn't help but savor the irony) had progressed to the point that she felt no desire to love a living, physical being. After all, it was a piece of metal, and if she wanted to make out with a hunk of metal that was her choice. Not that she had. Most likely.

But now Google Chrome, the beautiful web-browser that she liked to refer to as her computer's heart and soul, had provided her with a solution to the Mary-Sue problem that might just work. The only problem was that it involved a sickeningly fluffy love story between Gandalf and Lady Galadriel. In the midst of the sappy fanfic, she silently cursed those movies for all of their implications about Gandalf and Galadriel that had only been present to drive along the back stories that were necessary in film but that Tolkien had saved for his appendices. _And for character development,_ her mind added, for as much as she hated to admit it, some of Tolkien's characters (ahem _Faramir_) were woefully underdeveloped in the novel.

In this particular fanfiction, the friendship between Gandalf and Galadriel - always interlaced with conflicts for the sake of the plot line - slowly turned to romance as they drove away the Mary Sues by causing an explosion that served as a beacon for the horde of 'Sues. But just as quickly as she had discovered the wisdom behind that short story, she realized that it was also a rip-off of that animated movie _Wreck-it Ralph, _starring Elves and Istari instead of pixel-people and Rivendell as that twisted version of Candyland that had ruined her favorite childhood board game.

_Crap, _she thought to herself and continued filing through fanfictions, promising that neither Gandalf nor Galadriel would ever hear about that dreaded story.

Then another fanfic popped up, entitled _Because Mary Needs a Man, _which, despite what its title suggested in Tenali's mind - which was a far more twisted mind than her fellows assumed, considering that not a single relationship in her lifetime save that with her laptop had lasted beyond a week, four very awkward dinner dates, and a birthday present that she loved far more than the man who gave it to her -, turned out to be quite helpful in be-ridding a magical realm of Mary Sues.

She still couldn't believe how many authors took Mary Sues seriously in their fanfictions, but it was equally difficult to believe how many parodies had been made, in which the Mary Sues were pests, Middle Earth had a bug problem, and some unfortunate Elven OC was the exterminator. The only problem with those stories was that all too often the Elven OC brought in to empty the world of Mary Sues was a Mary Sue herself, who ended up marrying poor Legolas in the end.

But this 'Mary Needs a Man' story was proving informative on the subject of Mary Sues, and it soon became clear that Tenali needed to look beyond what she considered reality. Of course, this story as well contained the inevitable romantic side-plot, but she figured it would be nearly impossible to find a useful story that didn't contain any romance.

When she realized what she'd just said in context with her own situation, she slammed the laptop shut, muttered an apology to it, and did her best to drift into a troubled sleep.


	4. Rise of the Stu-Maker

**Disclaimer: I don't own Tolkien's creations. I do, however, own every Middle Earth movie that has come out, all three **_**Lord of the Rings **_**novels, **_**The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, **_**and a lifelong obsession with Middle Earth, but unfortunately, I don't think that counts as the legal rights to the world and its inhabitants.**

**Now that we've gone through Legomance, it's time for some Applemance... **

"So you tell me this foreigner can find a better way of destroying Mary-Sues than dropping them into your mirror?"

Galadriel nodded eagerly. Dunking Mary Sues into the water of her mirror was nasty business. Not only did it contaminate the mirror and force her to refill it every time a Mary-Sue was captured, but however painless, she could not help but feel that it was cruel to the characters themselves. Plus she never found it particularly pleasant to look into a Mary-Sue's past, present, and future, for those thoughts often contained memories that were not meant for the delicate eyes of an Elf. The process did not drown them necessarily, so much as cause them to believe, through the dreamlike state the mirror induced, that they were already dead, therefore causing their hearts to stop painlessly and quickly and for them to disappear all together. After all, they were not part of this world. She didn't know if their corpses appeared in the other world, or what, but she preferred to remain in her uncomplicated state of ignorance.

Gandalf, hearing this, relaxed somewhat from his original state of panic at seeing the Lady of Lorien so enraptured with that otherworldly device. The laptop itself, now sitting open before the dark gray eyes of Tenali Hyperion, seemed to glower at him behind its screen. _I know everything, _it muttered maliciously, _even more than you, old man. I give the answers to every question in every world. And I have Google translate, which does more languages than you have even heard of in your millenia upon this soil. _

Gandalf shook his head vigorously, shoving the voice from his mind. It seemed that Tenali and Galadriel were the only two in Lothlorien who could get along with Tenali's computer. Galadriel because it posed the solution to her Mary-Sue problem and the possible redemption of her sanity, Tenali because it was her pitiful excuse for a lover. Not that Gandalf knew anything about lovers.

"Are we permitted to bring in the others?" Galadriel asked impatiently, her eyes never leaving the bright screen. Other kings and lords in Middle Earth who had suffered the omnipresent pursuit of the Mary-Sues and had a bone to pick with them (no doubt their spouses were equally furious with the unsettling monsters) had been asking to see the computer and all it had to offer. Galadriel had proposed a council of all races (except for Dwarves, who had little to no experience dealing with women and whom, upon the Mary-Sues' realization that Fili and Kili were both dead, had not suffered any sort of crisis with the Mary-Sues).

Tenali, on the other hand, had no intention of subjecting her 'precious' to overexposure before a council, therefore coming to the conclusion that it would be best to sort out the information they had before revealing it to the other guests in Lothlorien. No doubt that they would want to see the laptop later on, but Tenali was very over-protective, and Lady Galadriel didn't think the computer's valuable assets would be going public any time soon.

"No you are not," snapped Tenali, just as they had predicted. In fact, they had even taken a bet with Haldir and Lord Celeborn over whether her pride that the laptop belonged to her outweighed her passionate desires to keep the machine to herself. The Lord of Lothlorien and his leading soldier had of course bet that she would show it off to the entirety of the Middle Earth Council, leaving Galadriel and Gandalf to contradict them. Which they had, and now they were receiving the payment, however unfortunate it was that Tenali would not reveal her computer to the Council.

"Soon we shall have a little half-human, techno-child running around the Golden Wood," joked Galadriel, seeing the obvious attachment in Tenali's eyes as she stared at her computer screen.

"Now, now, don't be crude," Tenali chided, rolling her eyes in acceptance of the jest.

"If I may point out, Miss Hyperion," said Gandalf from behind them, slowly becoming just as fond of the device as Lady Galadriel, "You were the one who, when Haldir mentioned how much you loved the computer, told him to - what was the phrase? - 'go crap in a plastic bag?'"

"Well my point was that before he got on my case about how much I loved technology, he should try spending some time without its basic essentials, like the toilet, for one. Which yes, I have spent time without in my life."

"What, may I ask, is a toilet?"

Tenali stuck her tongue out in disgust. "Never mind," she gagged, turning back to the web page. It was another of those fanfiction websites, which were chalk full of the 'Mary-Sues invade Middle Earth' plotline, yet she'd been given an utter shock when she discovered just how few fanfics there were for _Lord of the Rings _in comparison to _Harry Potter _and _Twilight, _and even cliche rip-offs of _The Hunger Games, _in which a sixteen-year-old girl is forced into a love triangle by her distopian society and, in response to the trauma, throws a huge tantrum and overthrows the government. It was one of the few instances where one could, to put it simply, judge a book by its cover.

The _Harry Potter _fanfics Tenali could understand. Even if multiple aspects of it had been taken directly from Tolkien, the plotline was easy to comprehend, appropriate for practically anyone who could read, contained magic, teenage angst, and an evil overlord who wanted power over the entire universe. Who could resist?

_Twilight, _on the other hand... she shook her head sadly, almost forgetting about Gandalf and Galadriel. The phrase 'hot teen monster-boys' popped into her head; she'd heard it so many times that it had become the first topic on her mind whenever the subject of _Twilight _was broached. She could only hope that the reason there were more fanfics for those novels than for Tolkien was that Tolkien's plotline left the reader feeling far more satisfied with the story, but somehow, she didn't think that was the case.

_But maybe, _whispered an evil voice inside her head, which she promptly shoved away. Of course, since she couldn't physically make it go away, it continued its thought anyways. _Maybe Twlight fanfics could give you an idea of the male equivalent of a Mary-Sue. Then you could write a male Mary-Sue into existence, duplicate him, and lo! You can pair them all off with your Mary-Sues, satisfy them both, and maybe they will all disappear._

_But then they'd breed, _another unorthodox train of thought replied from the darkest corners of her mind.

_Ew. Who said anything about breeding?_

_You did, _the voice told her (or itself, depending on the point of view) mischievously, before both sides of the conversation faded away into nothingness, leaving Tenali with an unpleasant picture in her mind of the offspring of two flawless characters and quite a few knots in her stomach.

"Are you okay?" inquired Galadriel, snapping her out of her dreaded imagination. "You seemed sick there for a moment."

She shook herself off. "I'm okay, she said shakily as the last wisps of horror faded from her brain. "My train of thought ran a bit off the track."

"So I noticed."

"But I think I have an idea, however strange it may seem."

"Okay, shoot," Galadriel told the young woman, and Gandalf's eyebrows shot upward at her choice of language.

"This may sound like self-imposed torture, but I think we need to read the stories where the Mary-Sues are actually heroes." At this suggestion Galadriel, too, raised her eyebrows. But as Tenali continued, the puzzle pieces began to fall into place. "We need to examine their personalities and how they differ, if ever so slightly, depending on the canon character they are eventually paired with.

"By watching how each couple interacts - always drifting from enmity to friendship to true love, if the authors follow the general pattern - we can create an ideal partner for every Mary-Sue we catch by following a basic Gary-Stu-"

"Gary what?" interrupted Gandalf.

"Gary-Stu. The male equivalent of a Mary-Sue, according to most fanfic sites. Some of them use names like Stan Rogers or something as ridiculously cheesy as Mr. Muscles, but Gary-Stu seems to be the most widely accepted term for them. So if we create general patterns of Gary-Stus that are just as tasteless as the slight variations between Mary-Sues, and stick them together, they should leave Middle Earth, having found what they sought here and quit bothering us all together."

"But what if something else is controlling them?" Galadriel's face betrayed her worry.

"One idea at a time, lady!" Tenali hissed. "We can deal with whatever may be controlling the Mary-Sues once we get rid of its minions. And if I'm correct, you seemed adamant yesterday that the Mary-Sues were acting on their own."

"Well," protested Galadriel, "I can change my mind. Now what do you need to create these Gary-Stus?"

"Not much more than the computer. I'll need some Elf-magic, I suppose, to write these things into existence. I mean, I can publish the story easily onto the website, but once it's up there, your magic will be what brings them from the page into reality. Not to mention we might need Legolas and Aragorn as models if my original plan doesn't work."

"Well type him up and see if it does!" Galadriel waved her hands impatiently, focused on the keyboard and the author's fingers that typed furiously on its keys.

Tenali nodded. "Sure thing. Our first Gary-Stu." She opened up a Microsoft document and labeled it _Gary-Stu Recipes. _

"This Gary-Stu will be paired with an Elven Mary-Sue," said Tenali, almost to herself. "Now let's see..."

That evil grin came over the Lady Galadriel. "The broken, dethroned prince of a lost realm," she told the author. "The Mary-Sues here love that. And he should be blonde. Strong jaw, electric blue eyes that seem to darken when he thinks about his past, a slender but sturdy build that is tall but not towering... um... well-muscled, modest, the power to heal, excellent shooting skills..."

Tenali's fingers worked quickly as Galadriel spoke, rattling off the characteristics of an Elven Gary-Stu. "A rather insipid personality, but you probably shouldn't write that down, because it qualifies as a negative characteristic."

"Unfortunately so," she muttered in response. "I think that does it for him, don't you?"

Galadriel read down the list of traits, her eyes lighting as if she were a cheesy Marvel super villain with an evil plan destined to fail. "I believe that does," she said, her voice soft and cunning.

She turned to face Gandalf, who had been watching the process silently, smoke curling from his smooth white pipe and dancing in the afternoon breeze. "I think we have found somewhat of a solution. Do you believe so, _mellon nin_?"

His voice was gruff and deep. "I do not know. There is something beyond the Mary-Sues that we cannot see. But yes, I think that for the time being, we will be rid of them. Perhaps not the power that is behind them, but the Sues themselves we will be rid of." He said it quietly, as if there were something listening to him speak from the shadows, and Tenali felt a shiver up her spine. Then a kindly smile filled the wrinkles in Gandalf's face, and the sudden cold disappeared.

"Now then." Galadriel's voice sliced through the silence in a business-like tone. "Let us activate the Stu-creator."

**Author's Note: There will not be a Legolas/OC side-plot, though I do think there might be some sort of humorous romance, so if you can give me a good character to pair with my bad-tempered OC, I would be thankful, because I don't want to stick her with a character that already has a canon spouse. No Gimli/OC, please. One of my other stories already has eyes for a Dwarf. And for the record, I have totally crapped in a plastic bag.**

**P.S. Sorry about the slight **_**Harry Potter **_**bashing and **_**Twilight **_**bashing. I figured it was necessary for character development and some character background. You know, the whole 'likes and dislikes' drill. Thanks for reading!**


	5. Edward Legolas Potter

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but Tenali, her computer, and the Gary-Stus and Mary-Sues in question, the latter two which I am not that proud to own.

Author's note: Sorry, Marvel fans, that I kind of bashed your villains. But the fact that Disney now owns Marvel is kind of ticking me off right now, because I really don't think that The Avengers and Phineas and Ferb should go together. And I think that Disney will butcher the Marvel comics, so I was kind of venting my anger into this story. And this is sort of a short chapter in which I'm forming a bridge into the more interesting stuff.

"You did not do the reading before you created me?" asked one of the Gary-Stus in shock.

Tenali shrugged nonchalantly. "You were the first creation. We kinda decided to wing it with you. But if I'm any judge, you turned out pretty darn good for a tasteless character with no personality."

The Gary-Stu in question was indeed their first creation. He had all of the features that Galadriel had suggested based on what she knew of the Mary-Sues (and probably her own preferences as well): intelligent blue eyes that darkened with pain when he thought about his past, fighting ability beyond all that Tenali had seen in her lifetime, a Legolas-esque build and hairstyle, and healer's hands.

"Well gee, thanks, God," the Gary-Stu replied dryly. "How kind of you."

"Okay, try to at least use phrases more common in Middle Earth. And you can go fight with Galadriel if you want to pick on your creator. She's the one who came up with all of your traits."

The other Gary-Stus just stood without moving, as if they were marble statues rallied behind the first. Tenali had discovered after the first creation that handling the Gary-Stus would be far easier if they were more passive. Plus that would allow the Mary-Sues to take initiative in the relationship without argument, while the Stus just did what they were told. Haldir protested that it was sexist, but Tenali had responded just as icily that after so many millenia of worlds dominated by men, it was only justice. Haldir had muttered that it sounded more like badly-planned vengeance, which only went along with Galadriel's slight resemblance to crappy Marvel supervillains.

"So where are these lovers you promised us?"

Tenali made a very rude gesture behind her back as she fiddled around with the computer. Fiddling around with whatever webpage she had up at the moment seemed to be about all she ever did, but Galadriel had seen the wonders that laptop was doing for them all.

"You are really pushing it, you know that?" she growled at the Stu.

"You promised," it whined pitifully, turning its blue Elven eyes into pools of pathetic misery.

Tenali groaned. "Shut up, dude. Please?"

"I have a name, you know."

"Yes, I do know, and I don't want to hear it! So shut up!" By now she was shouting at their first, unruly Gary-Stu. "If you stop talking, I'll send Galadriel to bring you your Sue. She's just as annoying as you are."

Despite the insults, her offer shut him up, and he stepped back into the crowd of Stus.

"Now, now," said a new voice, its tone a malicious coo. Galadriel stepped into the room of Stus, her eyes glittering with an oddly devious light. Tenali reflected that she might need to keep the computer away from Galadriel in the near future if her insanity progressed to the point where she had her hands on someone's throat.

"Who are you, beautiful!" the Mary-Sue's face lit up in a glowing display of beauty that caused all imperfect entities to avert their eyes immediately, save the Stu, who grinned like the winner of a Mister America pageant.

He bowed low, yet slightly crooked, like a prince that has not yet seen his throne. And if she were being truthful, Tenali had to admit that a dethroned prince described him perfectly. "I," he said in a charming voice, "Am Edward Legolas Potter."

Galadriel's eyes shot wide open. "You did not name him that," the mouthed to Tenali. But the author just shrugged sheepishly.

"I couldn't think of anything better. Plus the three most popular character from the three most popular novel series seemed like a good place to start."

"Legolas is going to kill you."

Tenali snorted. By now they were speaking aloud. "I'd like to see him try." She turned to type into her computer, only to find that the screen had gone black.

Credit: The idea of a Mister America pageant came from a Bloom County comic in which Steve Dallas enters a Mister America pageant as Mister Bloom County.

Sorry this chapter was so short… I needed to get Tenali away from Lothlorien for this to get interesting...


	6. Unnecessary Elven Tensions

**Disclaimer (AGAIN): I own nothing. Zilch. Except for Tenali, who in return owns Edward Legolas Potter. **

**Author's Note: For those of you who are confused, I had to change this chapter a bit after the original draft of it, because I decided that Celestia should not go on the quest to Mirkwood. Not only would it pose an issue once they meet Legolas and Thranduil, but I have different plans for our dear Edward Legolas Potter.**

Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and Aragorn were seated around a circular table, each pondering the decision they had made the previous day.

Galadriel sighed, glaring pointedly at her son-in-law. "You know, it was your idea."

Elrond's eyebrows curved upward in annoyance more than any of them thought was possible. "It was only my idea to send my most trusted advisor to keep that author in line."

"Yes," chimed in Aragorn, "but you saw the loathing in their eyes when they looked at each other. Erestor and Tenali will not get along particularly well, and we Gondorians have a very specific term for a company that turns against itself: orc-food."

"Look, it was absolutely necessary!" Galadriel raised her voice over the beginning of a turmoil. "Her computer died, there were no outlets, and we didn't have a charger. It was all I could do to open them a path into the modern world."

Gandalf rested his forehead in his palms. "Yes, but did you have to bring forth a second party at the same time?" His voice seemed more weary than frustrated as he brought up the group that Haldir had reluctantly taken charge of.

"Edward was the only chance we had!" she protested, yet she knew it would not make a difference. The Sue she was supposed to pair Edward Legolas Potter with, named Celestia Endarien, had rejected him, due to the discovery that his eyes did not possess the same 'dreamy' quality as those of Legolas Greenleaf. But Galadriel had easily found a better use for him. Given that Edward was based on the prince of Mirkwood (with a couple of off-world elements mixed in), it had seemed politic to send him off with Haldir and some of his compatriots.

"You mean now that Celestia rejected him?" Elrond muttered grudgingly. "And how did they come up with a name like that anyways? It sounds as if they were trying to imitate and Elven name and failed miserably."

Galadriel snorted. "That's exactly what they were doing. The name Celestia is that of a pony princess in an off-world popular TV series."

Galdalf stuck his tongue out in disgust at the mention of pony princesses. The Elf queen had shown him half an episode of that show, and his mind had been tainted with rainbows and sparkles and high pitched whinnies that sounded nothing like his beloved Shadowfax. He did not miss Galadriel's smirk at his expression however, and he made a point to object to her plans.

"This was a whim, Milady," he broke in, turning to face Galadriel head-on. "There was no real planning involved."

"Well when Tenali's laptop died, we didn't really have time to plan," she snapped in return. "All we had was a black screen, a faulty Stu who had just lost his girlfriend, an angry author, and some of her favorite choice words."

Elessar, for the first time in that council, assumed his original role as peacemaker. "Please, calm down, all of you," he said, though his eyes flicked accusingly between Gandalf and Galadriel, whose normally wise faces were conorted as they shared a furious glance. "Now what makes you think Mirkwood is the source of the problem. You've been speaking of this quest into the forest as if you are sure the source of our Sue invasion is there."

"Legolas is Prince of Mirkwood, might I remind you," replied Galadriel hotly. "And the Sues want him, so it's natural that they would emerge in his domain. Plus Sauron once dwelt there, in the old fortress of Dol Guldur and where an evil once resided, another is not far behind."

"Wise words, Milady," Aragorn said justly, before turning to Elrond, who fumed at the thought that this king of men, who he had raised, was not turning against him in an argument. Sure, he'd been the one who sent Erestor off with a 'deranged writer,' but he did not approve of the march to Mirkwood. Mostly because of a recent disagreement with King Thranduil over whether or not his son was attracted in more ways than one to a certain Dwarf of the Fellowship, he did not believe that the Woodland King would help them in their plight.

"Yes Aragorn, I believe that I do have something to say!" He rose from the chair, leaning over the table until he was nose to nose with Galadriel. "Kiss my-"

"-_ENOUGH_!" Gandalf's voice thundered over the council, and Elrond fell silent, sinking back into his chair like a sword of ice about to stab the Lady of Lorien that had melted into a puddle. The white wizard looked down upon Elrond with more than a hint of sarcasm hidden in his tone. "Been reading fanfictions, have we?" he boomed. The Lord of Imladris met his gaze challengingly, then lowered them again, his shoulders relaxing and the fire disappearing from his dark eyes.

Gandalf's iron stare swept over them all once more, and he again took his seat. "I believe we have some discussing to do of all recent events."

"Must we go all the way to the entrance of Moria?" Erestor complained, his voice shaking with the constant trot of his horse.

Tenali wrinkled her nose at him. Over the course of a single day, the counsellor had come to realize that expressions - especially distainful ones - were Tenali's main ways of communicating. Not that he was happy about it, but Galadriel had never said he had to be happy about the journey. She'd just said he had to go, and go he did, though even how he was regretting it.

"We received instructions to go to the entrance of Moria, and I will not stray from a set of instructions, thank you. I have every intention of returning to my world in one piece."

Erestor turned the map in his his hands. The old parchment was wrinkled and folded over in the North, which was remarkably convenient, for wrinkled and folded was exactly how Erestor would describe the northern region of Arnor. But in Lothlorien the map was straight and bold, and clearly showed a path to the edge of Amon Hen that did not lead them anywhere near Moria.

"We could always go around the mountain," he suggested meekly, forcing a smile onto his otherwise unenthusiastic Elven features.

"Congratulations!" Tenali called over her shoulder. "You just got promoted from Captain Obvious to_ Platinum_ Captain Obvious!"

Erestor tilted his head. "What is platinum?" he asked.

"It's what you might call Legolas's hair," she replied with a sardonic chuckle. Oh, yes, it was indeed quite fun to play with language.

"What has Legolas got to do with all this? Do you love him?"

At that, Tenali's horse halted, and she slid off of its back, marching over to Erestor with an unshakable glare written across her face.

"Fool!" she hissed. "The Sues will murder me if they think that I love Legolas." Then her nose wrinkled again. "And believe me, Legolas Greenleaf is my last choice of Elves, save perhaps Haldir."

Erestor quirked his lips slightly. "Below me?"

"Below-" her voice cut off abruptly as she comprehended the words of Elrond's advisor. "Well, considering that he's _King_ Captain Obvious, and you're only Platinum Captain Obvious (not that there's a great difference), then perhaps so. Just don't dwell on it, genius," she said sarcastically, marching back to her horse and mounting to finish the ride.

They continued in a reluctantly contemplative silence to the entrance (or, as Tenali called it, the back door) of Moria, pale moonlight slowly outweighing the last rays of day as the sun set in the West.

"This is it," she whispered in a tone of reverence, the likes of which Erestor had not heard from her lips. "If Galadriel is right, this is where I emerged from the portal she keeps talking about. I couldn't see my surroundings, for it was the dead of night." She turned to Erestor, a reflection of the moon glittering in her stone-hard eyes. "Do you have the parchment?"

The Elf rummaged through a leather satchel for a few moments before extracting a stretch of animal hide parchment and passing it into the writer's hands. The Queen of Lothlorien's theory was that an off-world device was necessary to bring characters into Middle Earth, but to send them from Middle Earth required the scripts to be written on a device from inside that world.

She began to read aloud: "With starlight at their backs and the walls of ancient Moria beheld in their eyes a waiting danger, a white light seemed to descend upon the travelers. Voices whispered in the shadows and songs in the clean night air echoed between the mountaintops. A wind picked up, not strong enough to knock them off their feet, yet bearing a blinding glow that veiled them from their surroundings. Then all went silent in their ears, and nothing moved but their breaths. This was not Middle Earth, but the world of their destination. The world where one of them had come from.

**Author's Note: Was I right about Amon Hen being the mountain the Moria was under, or not? Because I can't remember exactly what it was called. In the next chapter, we will catch up with our Sue-hunters (and Sues themselves): Haldir, Edward, and Celestia.**

**Credit: For those of you who did not get the reference, Celestia was named after Princess Celestia from the My Little Pony TV series. No I don't actually watch those, but I skimmed over the Dragonshy episode on Wiki because I wanted to know whether or not they actually ripped it off The Hobbit. They did.**


	7. Edward and Haldir and Orcs, Oh My!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada. It's all Tolkiens. Oh, except for Tenali, Edward, and Celestia. They're mine. Totally mine.**

**Author's Note: In this chapter, we will catch up to our Mirkwood party (including Edward Legolas Potter the faulty Gary Stu and Haldir) and get an update from Lothlorien over how Galadriel is coping with an angry Mary-Sue under her wing who knows about the entire operation and a dead Mac computer. Enjoy!**

Perhaps tracking down an orc pack was not the wisest thing to do two days into a first priority mission for Galadriel. Perhaps it was foolish to risk the lives of his company hunting down whatever orcs were left wandering after the death of Sauron. Perhaps he should be focusing a bit more on the journey at hand, and perhaps he should not be straying off their road for nothing more than to slay creatures as foul as orcs. After all they ranked of far less danger than the road ahead of them, an no one wanted to see death as of yet.

But Haldir, being the hunter he was, didn't really care about what they probably should have been doing. He only cared about the orcs they were tracking. His company had agreed that they should trek along side Mirkwood as long as possible, staying on a lesser known path used commonly by the Elves of the Third Age and no others.

"Haldir, are we really forsaking a mission for a bit of orc blood?" asked one of his soldiers impatiently.

"Silence!" Haldir snapped, examining a print on the ground. "You do not want to alert these monsters of our presence. And no, we do not forsake our mission. Only delay it."

Behind him, Edward Legolas Potter performed a spectacular eye-roll. "Delay for how long?" he inquired, a drawl to his voice.

"Hush it, Vampy." Haldir shot his reluctant compatriot a withering glare before turning back to the orc-print. Ever since Edward had explained the true circumstances surrounding his name, courtesy of Tenali's obsessive antipathy towards Twilight and her insistance that Harry Potter was a rip-off of Tolkien, Haldir had found great humor in calling him by a variety of pet names that even a lovestruck Mary-Sue would find insulting.

But Edward, despite the passive personality he'd been given in order to satisfy Celestia, simply folded his arms in defiance. "We're supposed to be going to Mirkwood to solve a Mary-Sue problem. For all we know, there could be some terrible evil lurking there, and you're worried about orcs?" He snorted. "There's a lot worse than orcs in the Mirkwood forest."

"I _know_ there is." Haldir got to his feet, adjusting the bow around his left shoulder. "That's why I'm not particularly eager to go in just yet."

"Awww, is Haldir scared?"

Edward's protruding lower lip and wide blinking eyelashes apparently brought Haldir to his limit. He could deal with constant rivalry, but insults to his pride? He narrowed his eyes, stepping forward so that his face was only inches from the faulty Stu's and whispered dangerously, "I fear not the forest of Mirkwood, nor the heights of Mount Gundabad. I will go where I must to complete my path."

"Then why do you fear to go into Mirkwood?" Edward hissed back.

"I wish to track the orcs instead of entering Mirkwood as planned, because the path these foul creatures follow may lead us to a more powerful evil: the source of our Sue problem."

"I see," muttered Edward grudgingly. "Then we best be going, and leave this close-up to rest before the slash-ficcers misenterpret. Not that I have anything against homosexual relationships, but it would be completely non-canonical in this case. After all, I was created to satisfy a Mary-Sue."

Haldir did not respond. "Onward!" he shouted to the soldiers, and they marched after the trail of an orc pack.

Meanwhile, in Lorien, Celestia was doing all she could to make the Lord and Lady's lives miserable. Anyone who brought her a faulty soulmate was going to may for their misdemeanor in her mind, and in her mind, it was all Galadriel's fault. Galadriel and her bloody Celeborn lived happily ever after and poor Celestia had been denied her one true love. What kind of story was that? Had Tenali been there, she would have said that was a story with a plotline and some real emotional stakes, where not everybody lives happily ever after in the end. Then she would have told Celestia to examine her life, being dumped unceremoniously into Middle Earth with a bunch of Mary-Sues who were constantly bickering over who got to marry which Elf, while the only 'soulmate' she'd found in her life was a computer. But Tenali wasn't there, and despite the conflict her presence would undoubtedly have sparked, Celeborn and Galadriel only wished she could join them in their suffering.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Galadriel groaned, in response to the Sue's ceaseless complaining. "Why don't you go argue with the author of your story; she's the one who wrote you into existence here."

Celestia raised an eyebrow. Her face was not particularly expressive, but after tens of thousands of years bouncing her elaborate schemes off of Celeborn, Galadriel could tell a negative reaction when she saw one.

"What?" she asked as the Sue squinted, scrutinizing Galadriel's face in a way that made her quite uncomfortable.

Celestia straightened up, eyeing the Elf queen innocently. "Nothing, nothing," she crowed, her hideously perfect features pretending to stare off into the distance, as if she actually had a situation to appear brooding over. After a moment, she met Galadriel's eyes again. "You have wrinkles, did you know?"

She had _what_? Did that dastardly little creep just say what the Lady thought she did? Wrinkles? Well no duh, she was fourty-thousand years old, but she wasn't about to give Celestia the satisfaction of knowing such a superficial comment had gotten to her head. But it had, if she were being honest with herself. She'd known she had wrinkles since before she'd stopped aging, but for someone with as flawless an appearance as this blasted Mary-Sue to point it out so blatantly to her was- was- _Argh_!

Celestia was bothered by the silence. Galadriel was hardly ever silent; usually she was groaning and hissing and muttering to herself. But now she was silent, and Celestia did not like it one bit.

"Galadriel?" she asked quietly, in a voice so musical her words could have been put to tune on a lute. She never bothered to call the Lady of Lorien by any official title. Just Galadriel would suit her fine.

Oh, how Galadriel hated that voice. She listened to its incessant chatter for days on end, constantly ranting about Legolas and true love and how unfair her life was. Unfair indeed. "Celestia," she acknowledged through gritted teeth.

So she had finally cracked. After all those attempts Celestia had made to drive her batty, she finally cracked to one little comment about the wrinkles in her face. She hadn't even made that comment to be annoying; she only wanted to help.

"Did I insult you?"

Again, the soft growl. "No."

"I was only trying to help."

Oh, so she wanted to assist, did she? Maybe she could do something useful…

"Celestia, do you really want to help me?"

The Sue nodded sincerely. Typical. They were so self-centered and so good-natured at the exact same time.

Celestia did not know what the Lady of Lorien was planning when her tight-lipped grimace slowly spread into a maniacal smile that she had not seen before. A twinkle came into her eyes as her devious, crooked grin grew wider. She pointed to a sleek silver laptop sitting on a boulder in the midst of a thick clump of _mallorn_ trees. The Mac symbol dull and screen black, Celestia could only assume that the computer was dead. After all, her back story included a world of electronic advancement and modern English before she was pitched into Middle Earth. She knew computers better than anyone suspected she did.

"Why don't you set to work trying to re-power that battery?"

"How did you be-rid yourself of Celestia?" Lord Celeborn asked as they graciously waved their Rivendell guests goodbye. The Elves of Imladris marched North, in the direction that Haldir and his men had gone, but they would avoid Mirkwood altogether. Gandalf had disappeared mysteriously the previous day, making his whereabouts unknown to them all. It was, after all, the way he preferred it to be, and he probably needed some time to himself following the whole 'One Ring to rule them all' business, followed by a mass invasion of Mary-Sues. Quite a busy time for a single wizard to handle.

"I simply directed her to Tenali's dead laptop, and she went to work. Bit more talented than we gave her credit for, eh?" Galadriel still had that grin on her face that set in whenever she had a particularly brilliant idea.

"So she will attempt to bring it back to life? Why don't we just wait for Tenali to charge- hold on."

"Yes?"

"If the computer is here… than… than Tenali doesn't have it with her?"

"Brilliant, Holmes."

"Holmes?"

Galadriel shrugged. "Off world phrase. Funny how long it took Celeborn the Wise to deduce that if Tenali is not here, and the computer is, then Tenali does not have her computer."

A twinkle shone in Lord Celeborn's eye, but it was mixed with concern for the notion that Tenali did not have her laptop. "Milady, how is Tenali supposed to charge the computer if she didn't take it with her?"

Galadriel went rigid. Oh. "She could… come back here, I suppose. I don't think she has a choice."

Celeborn chuckled. "Well, I do not think she has a choice. Though I'm tempted to tell you that maybe you are the one with the below-average deduction skills, you can always write Tenali to wherever she needs to go once you get the computer booted up."

"True. But how long can she go without her 'precious' is the question."

Celeborn was now laughing aloud. "Brilliant, Holmes," he said genuinely, a playful glint in his eyes.

But Galadriel frowned immediately at his use of the phrase. "It's sarcasm," she replied in a dead monotone, and without another word, stalked off to check on Celestia's progress with the computer.

**Author's Note: Next chapter we will be catching up with Tenali and Erestor, and driving the plot forward a little bit. This chapter was mainly because I can't resist the tensions between Sues, Stus, and angry Elves. **

**I'm not sure if the phrase 'Brilliant, Holmes' is actually from the books, but it seems to be quite a commonly used sarcastic phrase in the modern world, so I'm just going to do a disclaimer anyway. I think that phrase belongs to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but I know that Holmes does, at any rate. **


	8. Discoveries in Toledo

**Sorry it's been so long. I've been super busy, so updates will be less frequent. But I won't abandon the story. Definitely not. Also, this chapter is somewhat short so that I can get to the more interesting stuff in the later chapters. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own Middle Earth. My name is not Tolkien. If it was, I wouldn't be writing this fanfic right now.**

Tenali Hyperion and a very disoriented Erestor strode swiftly down the streets of Toledo, Ohio, looking for a Mac store. Tenali swore she had seen one around this area before, but she couldn't seem to get the adress, and her apartment was on the other side of town. So, as Tenali put it, she was improvising on the plan. As Erestor had put it, she was ad-libbing her lines for a script that might determine the fate of all Middle Earth.

"Cliche," was all Tenali could mutter in response.

Looking around, all Erestor could see were dull brick buildings and dully lit advertisement signs that protruded from either side of the street. The road itself seemed to go on in a straight line, framed by the run-down shops and occaisional telephone pole that teetered to one side, as if it would fall any moment.

"Depressing little citadel," he commented, and the author he was with craned her neck to face him, a crooked smile curving her lips.

"Not much of a citadel, if you ask me. A citadel, in ancient times, was well-protected city, like Troy. Except Troy was burnt to the ground by the Greeks, because it was making money off a trade route to the Black Sea."

"From the little I've heard of your history, wasn't the battle over some kidnapped woman?"

Tenali snorted. "Yeah, they say that Helen was Menalaus's wife and the most beautiful woman alive. Then the goddess of love decided that it was perfectly okay to go around handing out women to whichever guy said she was the prettiest goddess, and Helen ended up with naive Prince Paris. Hence, the Greeks attack. Hence the Trojans die, and Helen is rescued. Think what you want, but in reality, it seems that humans are more motivated by money than love. And please don't give me the whole 'King Elessar and Queen Arwen' lecture again. This isn't Middle Earth."

Erestor said nothing. Truth be told, he'd always been a hopeless romantic, though he didn't particularly want true love for himself. Him? True love? Bah! It was so much simpler just to hear about other people's love stories.

"Aha!" His thoughts were interrupted as Tenali stopped before a small white building that looked far better taken care of then those around it. "Here we are: Apple Store." The shop was quite modern looking compared to the city itself, and a small white apple like the one on Tenali's computer glowed at the front.

The girl inside, who looked to be a few years younger than Tenali, maybe in the midst of a college job, looked up from behind the checkout counter. Her soft green eyes flashed in shock as Tenali Hyperion and a rather strange young man decked out in medieval attire walked through her doors. The first thing Erestor noticed about her was her hair: it was short, spikey, and bright purple. How was this possible?

Her eyes were lined like Celestia's, with blue powder and streaks, and her lips were painted ruby red.

Despite the unusual appearances of both parties, Tenali marched straight up to the girl with no greeting whatsoever and asked, a hand on her hip, "Where do you keep your charging cords?"

"Charging cords?" the girl squeaked in a voice not quite as high pitched as a Sue's. Erestor squinted to read the name on her plastic tag: Ebony. Not a name he'd heard before. But then, neither was Tenali, if he thought about it.

Tenali's head bobbed up and down slowly, as if she were trying to make this Ebony girl comprehend what she was saying. Ebony's eyes lit, and she turned away from them. "Got the charging cords in the back. You two make an adorable couple by the way."

Tenali and Erestor shared a disturbed look.

Several boring and redundent minutes later, a party of three gathered around the newly charged screen of Tenali's laptop, reminding her of the days that she, Galadriel, and occaisionally Celeborn had spent before the screen in Lothlorien.

No need to be sentimental now, she coaxed herself, clicking on a link to a fanfiction tagged with 'Galadriel' and 'Mary-Sue.' The story that came up, to Tenali's great surprise and a fair amount of blushing, was a rather awkward fairy tale about Galadriel and Thranduil, and the romance that developed during the Third Age.

"Pact?" asked Erestor, his cheeks a brilliant scarlet. Tenali nodded.

"Pact now, never to show this to Thranduil, Legolas, Celeborn, or Galadriel. Or really anyone else."

For once, Ebony spoke up in her high, quiet voice. "Thank God it cuts off at chapter three."

But Tenali's eyes were glued to the page. Much as she hated Sue stories and terribly AU angsty romances, she couldn't resist reading until the end of chapter three, where the story cut off abruptly.

"Cliche," she muttered in defense. "And Galadriel is such a Sue in this story."

"Course she is. And-" Erestor's voice went dead.

"What? What is it?"

"Says here, in the very last sentence, 'She could not help but feel a strong passion when she spoke with Thranduil that complied with her desire to rule Middle Earth You don't think-"

But Tenali finished his sentence. "That a Sue version of Galadriel teamed up with a Stu version of Thranduil after their story went dead to rule Middle Earth? That an alternate version of the Lady of Lorien is behind every single Mary Sue that's invading your homeland?"

Erestor nodded wordlessly.

But the third member of their party was both horribly puzzled and quite annoyed at their constant understanding of each other's speech. Ebony wrinkled her nose (though it seemed more 'cute' than threatening, unlike when Tenali did it) and said condescendingly, "What are you talking about with all this Middle Earth stuff? The place isn't real! Just because I'm a nerd doesn't mean that I actually believe in places like that!" She sounded genuinely hurt.

A devious grin, much like the one they had seen on Galadriel's face before they left, crept over her lips. She quoted with an ominous edge to her voice, "I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure."

**Credit: Last line is from ****_The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. _****It seemed fitting to stick it in here. Ebony will be a bigger part of the story as time goes on... **


	9. Orc-Grunts and John Denver

**Requisite Disclaimer: If I owned Tolkien's works, would this be considered a fanfiction? Also, I obviously don't own the Toledo, Ohio song. John Denver owns that, even though he's dead, and I'm not sure who he passed the rights to, but it wasn't me.**

**Author's Note: I just love that Toledo, Ohio song, but I'm sorry Toledoans if this has offended you. It's for the sake of humor. I apologize. I don't intend to offend any Toledoans. **

"This is so _your_ fault!" shouted Erestor, picking up on the English slang and choice words that Tenali had been using when they were, once again, dumped unceremoniously into Middle Earth, this time in Mirkwood forest.

"_My_ fault? We were supposed to end up outside Moria! If anything, it's your fault for not reading the map right!"

"Oh, I'm sure it was the map! It had nothing to do with that paragraph you typed on your alien device to send us back!"

"What device? What map? I thought we were all sane here!" Ebony's shrill voice sliced into their argument from where they all stood glaring at each other, sprawled over the stumps of an enormous tree.

Tenali's eyebrows shot up, another common gesture of hers, as she turned to face the young Mac saleswoman. "Honestly, I thought the first question that came to your mind would be 'why the h*** are we sitting in a forest when we were last in Toledo. Everyone knows that Toledo doesn't have any trees!'" She raised her voice half an octave and squeaked out the words in a grotesque imitation.

Ebony flipped her jet black hair and sighed in annoyance. "I'd ask that, but I figured you didn't have an idea either."

"Think again, goth-girl. And be careful. You're starting to sound like a Mary-Sue."

"Now as much as I hate the both of you," interrupted Erestor, "Our first order of business before wringing each other's necks should be to pinpoint our location on the map."

"_Pfffft._ Simple." Tenali reached into her rucksack and brought out the newly charged laptop with a 10.7 Snow Leopard operating system to boot. She flipped open the top, and began to type in the document that had sent them to Mirkwood.

"And… then… a… map… of… Mirkwood… appeared… in… front… of… them," she muttered to herself as she wrote, and with a soft *pop* a scroll of old parchment appeared in before her.

"Viola."

Erestor's mouth fell open. "You mean you could just- write away our Sue problem?"

Tenali shot him a glare. "No, you idiot. There are some rules to travelling by fanfiction, or so says Galadriel. You can't write that your problem is solved, because all successful fanfics need some sort of plotline. So if we're stuck here, there are only so many conveniences that I can bring out of thin air for us."

"Like food?" Ebony asked hopefully, but the author shook her head.

"Nope. The catch to landing in a wilderness plotline is that an obstacle you need to overcome is starvation. We have to find our own food."

"When did Galadriel tell you all of this?"

Tenali shrugged. "Before we left, when she summoned me to a dinner with her and her Lord."

But Ebony wasn't convinced. "From what I know," she said suspiciously, "It doesn't seem like this Galadriel person has done much research. How do you know it all isn't a load of beetle dung?"

"What would you know about it, Goth-girl?" snapped Tenali, obviously a bit short tempered over their predicament. "You've been working in a Mac store for the past year at least, and it's not like you've ever read Tolkien. You confessed yourself when we were writing the fanfic you'd only seen the movies. And great as Peter Jackson is, he didn't completely follow the trilogy's plotline."

Then a rather strange something occurred to Erestor. "Wait a minute," he interjected. "Didn't you leave your computer in Lothlorien?"

She nodded, her shoulders raised in a half-shrug as if the answer had been obvious. "Course. But I needed a new one anyways, and it's not like I left my debit card in Lothlorien. And this way, if Galadriel manages to magically fix the battery, she'll have access to the Stu-creator as well."

"If you don't mind my asking," said Ebony in a tone thick with sarcasm, "I'm confused as anything over here, and since you implied that you know why we just got dropped into a forest with your magical laptop, I'd really like an explanation."

"Would you like us to relay the whole story, or can we just give a couple brief sentences?"

"You sound like a high schooler trying to get out of writing an essay."

"And that means?"

"Relay the story."

Tenali sighed. "Oh, where do I begin? I was walking down to the grocery store from my dingy apartment in Toledo, Ohio, when-"

"I doubt your apartment could be dingier than my college dorm."

Tenali raised a finger, then thought better of it. "You'd be surprised Goth-girl," she muttered. "Anyhow, I was walking to the local grocery store and writing a _Lord of the Rings_ fanfiction about myself showing up in Middle Earth and killing all the 10th Walker cliches as I embarked on my adventures, when this crazy wind picked up. Next thing I know it's midnight, and I'm on my a** somewhere outside of Moria.

"I hiked into the Golden Wood, at which point I was deathly confused as to my geographic location, and good ol' Haldir showed up and dragged me to Galadriel. She explained the Mary-Sue situation to me, and I offered to help."

"So that's why you have all the names of those Sues on your computer," said Ebony, her mouth shaped as an o of understanding.

Tenali snapped, "Look, Goth-girl, if you want me to tell the story, just shut it and let me talk!"

Ebony muttered something incomprehensible before gesturing for the angry writer to continue.

"We called together a council of all Middle Earth's great leaders to explain our solution, though I don't think we got much explaining done. Bring together that many kings and queens and such, and all you get is heated arguments. But that part is irrelevent. Galadriel and I came up with this brilliant idea called the Stu-maker, which writes Stus into existence and pairs them with the Mary-Sues. The idea was that they would pair off one by one and go 'poof' into thin air."

"Did they?"

Tenali shot her a glare. "I was getting to that. Generally yes, since they were only in Middle Earth to find suitable mates (namely Legolas). But our first Stu was a bit faulty, and so now we're stuck with him, because the given Sue, Celestia, didn't want him. But since Celestia now knows about the Stu-maker, we're stuck with her, too. I don't even want to know what's going on with her in Lothlorien."

She took a deep breath of frustration. "But then my laptop died-"

"-And since I had been sent to Lothlorien with Lord Elrond, Galadriel decided it would be a good idea if I accompanied Tenali to her world. It wasn't one of her best ideas, considering the level of insults we stooped to on the way there, but-"

"-but we made it to Toledo and bought a new computer, complete with a charger."

"How did you get an outlet in Lothlorien?"

Tenali grinned. "We wrote one into existence. It was one of those little things that won't screw up a plotline too badly."

Ebony pursed her lips. "I honestly don't see what you two find so unnappealing about each other. I mean, not that either of you is particularly appealing to me, but you'd make the perfect couple. You even finish each other sentences."

"Only because we've been forced to travel together between alternate worlds." Erestor grimaced, trying to imagine what it would be like if he and Tenali were a 'couple.' Chaos was the only word he could think of to describe it accurately."

"But what did you figure out by coming to our world?" Ebony asked, bringing them back to the plotline of their adventures.

"You remember that fanfiction we read, the one about a Sue version of Galadriel who everyone pretty much worshipped? The one the author abandoned?"

Ebony nodded.

"Well, we think that Sueladriel went a little mad sometime after the author ditched her story, so she rounded up other abandoned Mary-Sues and set them on Middle Earth."

Ebony's eyes bugged. "You mean she's trying to take over Middle Earth?"

"You buy into stories quick, don't you?"

"If something completely illogical happens to me, then I'll do my best to find a logical explanation, even if it is a bit far-fetched."

Erestor snorted. "That's an understatement."

With a wide roll of her eyes, Tenali spun around to hike, marching along a thin but noticeable path.

"You coming?" she asked, her head swiveling around to face them. Erestor, just barely looking up, opened his mouth to speak, his eyes wide. Ebony whimpered softly. "Whatever," and Tenali continued to march down the path.

A soft hiss echoed from the bushes beside her. Suddenly, Tenali got that feeling that her company had not been frightened simply of the trees.

Slowly, she faced the sound. Followed by a series of grunts and snorts that sounded like some form of communication, the thorn-laden bracken arched to the side, revealing a band of well-armed orcs.

Tenali winced. "Ambushed by orcs seemingly from nowhere. Most inconvenient of all cliches."

"What do you think it's saying?" Ebony's voice was soft and tinged with a whine.

"I don't know," said Erestor, "but I don't think it's inviting us to dinner."

Tenali, however, had gotten her wits back, if only a little bit. "Maybe it is inviting us to dinner. Except we're probably the main course," she whispered harshly, not taking her eyes off the orcs.

"Do you have any weapons on you?"

The question took Tenali by surprise, as she hadn't thought to pack weapons. Then again, she hadn't planned on landing herself in Mirkwood, either. She shook her head.

"Can you write some into existence?"

She wrinkled her nose angrily. "I think it's a bit too late for that, Elf-boy."  
"Elf-boy and Goth-girl. You like nicknaming people, don't you?" Surprised that Ebony had thought to inject herself into their squabbles, both Elf and fanfiction writer glanced at her reproachfully.

"You'd make the greatest couple ever," sang Ebony once more. That is, until an orc the size of a suburban hauled her off her feet and slung her over his back.

"The ol' 'weaponless and taken captive cliche, too?'" grumbled Tenali, offering no resistance as she, too, was hefted onto the back of an orc. "Aw, crap."

The orcs began to walk, and it was only then that Tenali realized they were probably urukhai, and to fight them was a hopeless cause. "We're screwed," she muttered to herself while hanging by her thumbs from uruk armor. "So very terribly screwed."

"Will you _shut up_?" hissed Erestor. "This is bad enough without you telling yourself every five seconds that we're going to die."

"What's it to you?" she hissed back. "I'm just being realistic."

She didn't hear much of what Erestor said to her after that, because she had found refuge in her little dreamland. She also never thought that she would be wishing for Toledo, Ohio instead of Middle Earth. Toledo, Ohio. It would be a Saturday evening there, when the sun went down and all the city smog lay thick overtop the 'skyscrapers.' They weren't actually skyscrapers, but that's what Toledoans called them. Then the moon would rise, and sink again, and dawn would come, and while Tenali hung by her toes in an orc camp, the people in Toledo would wake up in their apartments and head out to the grocery story, wondering what had become of that author girl on the third floor who always got up early so she could get coffee before the line formed.

Ah, Toledo. And like all cliche characters begin to do when they are in traumatic situations, Tenali began to sing, even though her singing, unlike most OCs', sounded like a dying seagull, or a cricket choking on grass molecules.

_Saturday night, and Toledo, Ohio is like being nowhere at all_

_All through the day how the hours rush by_

_You sit in the park, and you watch the grass die_

Erestor and Ebony stared at her blankly as the words to a rather humorous song written by John Denver (king of the music dorks) popped in to her head. She knew it word for word.

_Oh, but after the sun sets the dusk ends the twilight and shadows of night start to fall_

_They roll back the sidewalks precisely at ten_

_And people who live there are not seen again_

Erestor shot her a puzzled glance, but she grinned stupidly in response and continued to sing. Not seen again? He wondered. What kind of uplifting song was this? It was certainly not Elven, and it didn't really sound like an epic.

_Just two lonely truckers from Great Falls, Montana_

_And a salesman from places unknown_

_All huddled together in downtown Toledo_

_To spend their big night all alone_

Then Ebony began to sing, as if 'alone' had jarred her from misery. Anyone who lived in Toledo knew what it was like to stand there at night waiting for a bus they figured might never come. Who knew for sure, in Toledo, Ohio?

_You ask how I know of Toledo, Ohio, well I spend a week there one day_

_It's got entertainment to dazzle your eyes_

_Go visit the bakery and watch the buns rise_

Even Erestor cracked a smile at this one, though he was still confused as to what a 'bakery' was.

_But let's not forget that the folks of Toledo unselfishly gave us the scale_

_No strings, honest wait, that's the promise they made_

_So smile and be thankful next time you get weighed_

_And with and whet with_

_Let this be our motto_

_Let's let the sleeping dogs lie_

_And here's to the dogs of Toledo, Ohio_

_Ladies, we bid you good bye._

The three of them laughed hysterically, Tenali and Ebony because they lived in Toledo and knew every word of the song was true, and Erestor because he had no idea what was going on… but the girls' singing was enough to make him hack up hairballs if it went on long enough.

"Too bad we don't ever get to see that hole-in-the-ground of a city again," Tenali said between bouts of laughter.

"Maybe if we survive we'll appreciate it more."

"Oh, I doubt it. But it's fun to think about."

"Can someone please explain to me what these odd magical verses mean?"


	10. Author's Note: PLEASE READ

**Author's Note:**

**My sincere apologies: I am cursed horribly with a horrible case of horrible writer's block. I have been for a while. This story will be on HIATUS until further notice. Sorry, all of you who are waiting. I won't just abandon the story. I will keep it up when I get over this writer's block. I PROMISE. And if it gets to be a really long time, then you can just remind me with a PM and I'll do my best to get the next chapter up as soon as possible. Until then, I'll be working on a couple of other parodies and sarcastic Middle Earth fanfictions that I have more ideas for. Thanks to all of you for reading and reviewing and following and whatnot!**

**-Stormwalker**


	11. The Musings of a Jealous Elf

**Author's Note: Sorry about the wait. I've been busy as heck. The updates to this story can range from very frequent to once a month or so, depending on whether writer's block decides it will strike me over the head with a baseball bat or cut me a break for once...**

**Disclaimer: Middle Earth and all that belongs to Tolkien. I make no profit off of this, unfortunately. Some cash would be nice...**

Haldir was pissed. Very, very, pissed. Why, you ask? Well the answer was very clear, very handsome, and riding right beside him. Dear Edward Legolas Potter ranting for the past four hours about why he deserved Celestia's love. You'd think the guy would just move on from it already and pine for somebody else's affections, but no, he just couldn't get over this flipping Mary-Sue. They had been hunting down the orcs day after day, mostly so Haldir could distract himself from the dread of his actual mission -tracking down the source of the Sue problem- that was sitting in the pit of his stomach like a rock.

"Oh, will you shut up already!" he finally interjected, a huff escaping his perfect Elven lips. "I already know the story!"

"Did you know that she agreed to marry me before she left me?" Edward challenged, his own lips tightened in a line of misery.

"Stop sounding so dejected. You would hate to spend the rest of your life with Celestia anyway."

"Maybe I wouldn't."

"You know what makes a Mary-Sue and a Gary-Stu so compatible, Vampy?" Haldir's eyes narrowed dangerously as the question escaped his lips. Unwilling to show his fear of the older, more legitimate Elf, Edward shook his head, his spakling blue eyes refusing to betray any emotion.

"Neither of them have ever slain an orc, or watched a comrade die. All their tragic back stories don't actually exist. They faint at the sight of blood and are completely innocent throughout their lives. By accompanying me on my orc-hunting whims and into the forest of Mirkwood, you've lost that crucial Gary-Stu innocence."

The vampire-Elf stuck his tongue out at Haldir.

"Yes, yes, I know, Vampy," he said smugly. "I'm right, aren't I?"

They rode on in silence. The Mirkwood air was humid and muggy, trailing over from the edge of the great forest and into their sensitive nostrils. The trees seemed to bend low over them, hugging the trail and the orc prints that followed it.

"I wonder why they don't turn and go into the forest?" muttered Edward.

Haldir had leapt off his horse and was once again examining the tracks on the ground, pretending not to notice the presence of the Stu.

"I asked you-"

"They did!" Haldir snapped, before his voice softened to a fearful whisper. "They did turn into the forest. Right here. And we're going after them."

Edward rolled his eyes. "Oh, joy. Murky, murky Mirkwood."

"Well, you could always stay here. I'm sure we'd all be lifted of a heavy burden without you."

But that alone was enough motivation for Edward to accompany them. "In that case, I'm going," he muttered begrudgingly, and Haldir had to smile just one last time, before they turned and marched into Mirkwood.

The first thing they noticed was the absence of sunlight, but they had expected that. The second thing they noticed was an open flame, flickering beneath the covering of trees. Husky orc voices drifted into the Elves' ears, raised and hissing like the fire that crackled beside them. Their pig-eared shadows stretched and shrank against the massive trees of Mirkwood.

Then he heard familiar voice. A voice he did not think he would ever hear in the forest. "Dammit! Let me go! Maybe if they pinch me I'll stop dreaming, what think?"

"Just shut up. If we're hanging by our toes then we might as well sleep."

"Aw, crap," muttered Haldir.

Edward snickered. "Picking up some off-world slang, are we?"

"Shut up. Now we have to go rescue Erestor and Tenali."

"Who?"

"I said shut up, Vampy. You wouldn't know them. They're too intellectual."

"That doesn't even make sense."

"Precisely my point." Haldir turned away and slipped toward the orc encampment, with no particular plan in mind, motioning for his company to follow.

They seemed to take the orcs by complete surprise, bursting through the undergrowth, weapons glittering in the firelight.

"Woohoo!" shouted Tenali, a grin hanging upside down on her face. "Go Elf-boy!"

Haldir rolled his eyes and slashed at the nearest orc, noting that since the Sue invasion, he had been rolling his eyes in disgust or annoyance far too often for his liking.

Edward Legolas Potter proved quite a decent fighter, even after all that seemingly empty boasting. His skill with knives was outstanding, and Tenali could not help but be proud of the skills she had written for him, even though he was so blatantly a Gary Stu. His perfectly sculpted face and fangless vampire characteristics proved him too outrageously attractive to be anything else, even an Elf. Maybe that was why Haldir hated him so and kept shooting him murderous glances during the battle.

Haldir, of course, would later claim that he was only motivating himself to fight harder by pretending every orc he slayed was Edward.

Edward himself, being the Stu that he was, had to race over to where their comrades were hanging by their toes and heroically cut their bonds with a rather flashy wave of his prefectly crafted sword. Stupid Gary-Stus and their stupid weapon skills and stupid special swords.

But despite Edward's attempt at a heroic rescue, Tenali dropped head-first onto the ground, scrambling to her feet in a most undignified manner and beginning to scrounge for spare weapons to no avail. The strange girl from Tenali's world (or at least where Haldir assumed she was from) just stood dumbly in the sea of battle, her eyes flickering between the orc heads tossed like volleyballs and the angry Elves with all their majestic ferocity. Sort of.

Only Erestor seemed to understand what was going on. He drew a knife from his belt and threw it at the nearest orc, which let out a screech of defiance and pain that roused Tenali and the weird adolscent from their stupor. Tenali's martial arts skills that she had not failed to mention to the Lady Galadriel upon her capture seemed to do her little good when chaos raged around her. No matter how many orcs she attacked hands on, she could keep the grimaces of disgust from her face when they dropped and the fear from her eyes when they didn't.

The weird girl, of course, was completely useless. She'd obviously had no previous experience in battle and simply backed into the sidelines with an anxious expression written on her heavily painted face.

Haldir threw another knife, catching a glimpse of Edward in the corner of his eye, which only made him fight harder. But Edward was watching the weird girl. Could it be? Had he finally found another love interest after all his complaints about Celestia breaking his heart? Was he even paying attention to the battle?

An orc jumped onto Edward's back, and he screeched. Apparently he was not. Haldir suppressed laughter at the Stu's predicament. Brilliant fighter, huh? His jealous side wanted to cheer on the orc, but his more sensible side had better control over his actions. So he ignored the fangless vampire and continued to attack angry orcs before one of them cut his head off.

Soon, however, there were no more orcs to be seen besides those that lay on the ground, which were not a pretty sight.

"I think I would rather be in Toledo right now," the weird girl whispered, holding back a lump in her throat as she stepped between two dead orcs.

Tenali said nothing, instead wiping dirt from her face as if it actually mattered. Which it clearly didn't, but it was a given that she was trying to avoid agreement or disagreement with the weird girl's statement.

Erestor somehow managed to appear remotely clean and unharmed, despite the numerous scrapes and bashes everyone else had received. His dark hair was still pulled back in the classic Elven fashion, and he managed to uphold the pride that all of the other Elves had long since discarded in Mirkwood. Who would have thought that Lord Elronds personal 'psychologist' would have enough bravery in him to actually take part in a battle and pretend like he was a warrior afterwards while others were mulling over their newly acquired scars. While Haldir himself was shooting dirty looks at Edward, who somehow still managed to look perfect while wearing scuffed up armor with blood streaks on his face.

Yes. Haldir was still very pissed.


End file.
